Chairman Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority told the Fatah faction's central committee this week that he convinced United States Jews during his recent visit to the United States to tell President Barack Obama that there was an Arab partner for peace and to ask if there was an Israeli one. He said that after a two-hour meeting with "the Jewish lobby" there were those who promised to tell Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to break up his coalition or declare his recognition of the two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli dispute.
Abbas said he met eith the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and J-Street because he had nothing to lose. He said such meetings were important, despite opposition to them in the Arab world.